Patty Mills, playing for Brooklyn Nets, got the trophy for the 2021‑2022 season. That was his first award in his career. He respects his opponents and is famous for his three‑point shooting and leadership qualities. In October 2021 he became the first basketball player to shoot 10‑out‑of‑10 from the three‑point line in the first two games.

The worst act of sportsmanship is associated with the cyclist Lance Amstrong. In spite of him being diagnosed with cancer in 1996, he regularly dominated the Tour de France from 1999 till 2005. He also got the bronze in 2009. His string of success started to raise suspicion. It turned out that Amstrong doped for all these years and was finally found guilty. He is believed to be the one with the most sophisticated doping strategy in cycling history. All the titles were taken away from him.

To enjoy success, one needs to realise the essence of winning. Actually, to be a winner, you don’t always have to win. What matters in the sports world is respect for opponents, officials, fans, and rules, as well as team spirit, competing on equal terms, friendship, not doping, and care for your teammates and rivals. The rules might come in written and unwritten form. They are about integrity, tolerance, care, solidarity, perfection, and joy.

Obviously it has a harmful influence on your thinking processes and health itself, but in sport, doping equals cheating. If one participant  dopes, they ruin the game for everybody else. The game becomes uneven and no matter how hard you try, you will never be able to catch up with the person who doped. Consequently, all the results become unreliable. Being honest is an essential principle in sport. If you want to be a true champion, you must rely on your hard work and determination, not chemical substances.

Whenever we follow the spirit of fair play, we make a better world off the field. Not only does it teach us to be tolerant and respect other people, but it also forms a central factor of personal development and improvement. What’s more, when children are taught sportsmanship, they are likely to integrate into groups better and build a sense of teamwork. Following the rules of fair play makes it possible for them to see somebody else’s successes and a great effort put in it. And above all, when practising any sport, the competitors take pride not in the triumph itself, but the struggle and fight. It’s about how well you fought and not always what the result was.

He got ten World Championships medals and six Olympic ones. He became well‑known due to his acts of sportsmanship when in 1964 at the Winter Olympic Games, he helped Tony Nash’s team, his British opponents, repair their sled. This way, they won the gold while Eugenio with his members won the bronze. He claimed that Nash won because he had the fastest run and not because he had helped him. A couple of days later, he again helped the Canadian team fix the wheel. The Canadians won the gold that time and Eugenio the bronze. For these two acts of sportsmanship Eugenio was awarded the Pierre de Coubertin medal as the first athlete in history.